I know there was a reason posted somewhere before, but can someone remind me what exactly happened to the GST being once a month? Not sure if this holds true for other players, but I would personally spar a lot more and be more willing to participate if GST reverted to monthly rather than seasonally. Would also be willing to help out in setting it up in any way possible. Seeing as the entire community disappears until around GST time, this would also probably help in making it more active, right?  

very good idea! Why don't we try it out for a whole year and rig brackets to let (Darth) get belt everymonth plus gfx team or Whomever can make me hats that I request and I know I'll win because lets be real, I'm a boss!  

At the very least, I hope this becomes a thing when the guild system is finally released. The amount of interest it gathers (a lot) vs. the other competitive gameplay that this game has to offer (not much) vs. the effort it takes to host (not much) seems to point towards it being nothing but beneficial for the game if it was hosted more often.

It's kind of off the topic, but staff should also be considering GST-specific stuff for the guild system ahead of time. For example, fp4 has said that guilds will have the option of being one 50-member roster or two 25-member rosters. So, will splitting into two guilds effectively allow you to enter the GST twice? If that's how it works, no one who has forward thinking is going to choose to be a 50-member roster.

On that same note, fp4 has also mentioned that the GST will be combined into a single tournament. That's going to be pretty awkward for larger guilds. I can't imagine guilds being satisfied entering just seven out of their 50-player roster. It's going to inevitably result in people entering on throwaway tags against their main guild. If we'd rather not do an iDevice bracket and a Mixed bracket anymore, why not do something like a GST Major and a GST Minor where one tournament is worth significantly more points than the other? It'd at least allow 14 out of the 50 to enter. It'd also create an element of strategic rostering where guilds can go all-in on or tournament or split it down the middle and try to win both. The Major would naturally be more competitive, but those same guilds would be able to compete in the Minor where basically second-string sparrers would be competing and could have a shot at winning a lesser prize.

Anyway, I do think the GST should be monthly or that there should be a rotating monthly schedule of tournaments.  

Posted by Mount

very good idea! Why don't we try it out for a whole year and rig brackets to let (Darth) get belt everymonth plus gfx team or Whomever can make me hats that I request and I know I'll win because lets be real, I'm a boss!

what did i just read  

Unlike the spar community, members of classic staff have a life outside of graal. I don't think they would want to spend a Saturday every month for a section of the community that constantly bad mouths them for their hosting capabilities or "ugly" hats.

Don't worry iClassic staff, GOAT gots you
#GOATtheSuckUp  

Posted by GOAT

Unlike the spar community, members of classic staff have a life outside of graal. I don't think they would want to spend a Saturday every month for a section of the community that constantly bad mouths them for their hosting capabilities or "ugly" hats.

Don't worry iClassic staff, GOAT gots you
#GOATtheSuckUp

their fault for applying then  

If admins did notice already, GST is the most fun competitive aspect in graal for most players in graal. Not just sparers, literally most players of the community. This what different type of players do in the GST:

1. The players who single spar or just watches other single spar, are the ones usually who end up being qualified in the GST and the ones who actually participate in the GST.
2. The players who are not interested in single sparring but always guild spar in arenas like “belle” “pub” are the ones who usually qualify in the GST.
3. The players who never spars but a week before GST they sguild spar in battle arena 24/7. They don’t care about placing in the GST but they find guild sparring a very fun activity.
4. You get the players who also never single spars neither guild spar but they still want to participate in the GST for fun and to get the GST item. Some of those play actually end up qualifiying to the GST. With the help of other sparers.

I made this list just to show you that not only the sparring community is interested in the GST and if you think so then you’re totally wrong. MOST of the participators are not even sparers.
64 multiplied by 7= 448 participators in total in both idev and mixed GST.
There is at least 600 players who didn’t qualify but they still wanted to participate. Honestly there is more than 600.
That’s at least 1000 players who are interested in the GST.
The whole point of making this post is to show you how interesting we actually are in the GST. So if you guys improve it to make it even more fun, and if you make it take place at least twice in a season that would actually be very cool from you admins.

I know there isn’t really much preparations before GST except for making the Gst hats. This is why I also suggest to cancel the 3rd place hat or merge both idev and mixed GSTs into ONE with 3 hats only (second option is better, I play on both idev and pc myself and I participated in both gsts. I even done mixed gst on idev once, there isn’t much of a difference both platforms has their own advantages and disadvantages i’m sure the experienced sparers will agree with the second option which is merging GST)

At the GST day it does take two hours from the GP staff team time. I do have a question for the GP staff team, do you guys find it fun to host? Or you dislike the GST and you don’t really like coming online to host it? Please be honest i’m sure nothing will happen to you regardless of your answer

I would type a lot of more suggestions but I don’t want it to be ignored. If admins show us that they’re actually interested in what their community likes and find fun. Then i’m sure everyone would be more than happy to work with the admins as a community.  

saed no offense but if u alrdy struggle when the gsts aren’t merged ur chances of ever getin to finals diminishes to 0 if gst does merge.

with that, i don’t believe gsts should merge but making it monthly rather than seasonal would definitely bring more activity back to the sparring community. However, i’m still concerned about the quality of gst hats considering how ugly 99% of them are when they literally have 3 months to make it boggles my mind. would the quality go up or down if gst was monthly? who knows

but yeah i do support the idea that gst should be monthly  

1v1 spar, 2v2 tt, 5v5 gs and replace the hats with a perm trophy. Then add different types of bracket for every season.
GST merger would be interesting though, except for Alumni Mixed, rest of the teams will do KoH for the 2nd place. Then it'd completely kill GST if Alumni Mixed and Alumni 2nd team starts winning all.  

Since the most common pleb response is “How do you expect GFX staff to make that many decent quality hats” my answer is that I don’t. I think the hats are garbage to begin with, the GFX staff are severely lacking as shown by the failure that is this month’s VIP item, the “raccoon” morph that looks nothing like a raccoon. I don’t believe that top players participate to earn cosmetic items, but to prove that they are better than others and gain a sense of satisfaction from placing over their peers. To the next pleb response of “Then just host your own tournaments?” as someone who was hosting some of the first single spar tournaments frequently in 2011, a good amount of top players do not care unless it is an official server-wide tournament, and the satisfaction is not enough when you know that you aren’t really facing the best of the best. In my opinion the first place belt should become a permanent item, 2nd and 3rd place rewards should be replaced with gralats to solve the hat problem, 1st place should be granted the option to make their own hat, similar to how guilds with 1,000 hours holding towers used to be able to.

Also, the removal of the 1,000 hour hat reward single-handedly killed towering and it’s ridiculous to take something away and replace it only with the promise of “NGS will solve this” when this “NGS” has been a no-show for the past three years but that’s another subject.  

Posted by Comyt

Since the most common pleb response is “How do you expect GFX staff to make that many decent quality hats” my answer is that I don’t.

isn't it usually just a mask ?  

Expecting a group of people who kindly donate their time to keep the game running with no real benefit to them selves is already a very kind thing to do. I don’t see how people are expecting someone to take a day out of every month to host a gst.

I mean I get the frustration people have, this game lacks ambition and is pretty dead when it comes to generating content, however there’s only so much admins can do. Even if there was a large group of ambitious admins they have a lot of limitations on how they can improve/change the game to make it better.
I think personally this is more of a company problem, who ever owns the Graal games clearly hasn’t got any real ambitious visions for the game and is probably happy enough with the amount of revenue the game is producing at its current stage.  

Posted by Saber Alumba

I mean I get the frustration people have, this game lacks ambition and is pretty dead when it comes to generating content, however there’s only so much admins can do. Even if there was a large group of ambitious admins they have a lot of limitations on how they can improve/change the game to make it better.

This is why I was asking the graal police team in my previous post if they actually don’t mind hosting the GST twice in a season rather once. Although it’s not up to the GP team to decide how many times the GST is going to be hosted but they’re the ones who are technically hosting the GST. Of course Fp4 has a rooe too but a very small role I would assume.
As I said earlier either GST should be merged while being hosted twice in a season (which means the number of GST hats required in the season are still the same since only top 3 guilds in the GST can get them) or they should just remove the 3rd place match with the hat.


I know it’s not up to you guys but @ the GP team do you guys actually find it hard to host the GST? Do you think it will effect your graal job/irl life if it’s hosted twice in a season rather than once?  

Amount of GP staff on hand shouldn’t be a problem either. GST is on a Saturday, a day that most people have off from other responsibilities such as school or work, and it isn’t like they can’t just hire more for the occasion either. The only real acceptable excuse here is “We are too lazy.” In the end, this game is just a hobby, the game can only advance if those in power care enough to change it, and they don’t seem to care whatsoever as evidenced by three years of no “new guild system” among other empty promises.  

Posted by Comyt

Amount of GP staff on hand shouldn’t be a problem either. GST is on a Saturday, a day that most people have off from other responsibilities such as school or work, and it isn’t like they can’t just hire more for the occasion either. The only real acceptable excuse here is “We are too lazy.” In the end, this game is just a hobby, the game can only advance if those in power care enough to change it, and they don’t seem to care whatsoever as evidenced by three years of no “new guild system” among other empty promises.

king snapped